Maryse Ledent

An investigation of the effects of daily physical education in kindergarten and elementary schools

an approach for the balanced development of children and young people. Over the last four decades several trials involving increases in the number of hours of physical education in the school programme have been performed around the world: France, Canada (Lavallee, 1984; Shephard, Jequier, Lavalide, Labarre & Rajic, 1980); Australia (Dwyer, Coonan, Leitel, Hetzel & Baghurst, 1983; Siedentop & Siedentop, 1985; Tinning & Kirk, 1991); Finland (Sarlin, 1992), United States (Carlisle, Cole & Steffen, 1991); Germany and Czechoslovakia (Naul, Parier & Rychtechy, 1990) and Belgium (Pi6ron, 1982). Nevertheless, there have not been as many of these programmes as one might have wished for or, indeed, expected. The reasons are easy to see: they require time, money and availability as well as enthusiasm from teachers, and rigorous organisation and implementation, in order that the research generated be substantial and worthwhile. Thus, implementing DPE and researching its effects on pupils presents a formidable range of potential problems, especially when attempting analysis (e.g. number of subjects, teachers, classes and schools, sampling validity, duration of the programme, and patterns of assessment). The traditional design of comparing experimental to control groups presents a potential weakness if it is not accompanied by precautions to control the environment, subject matter taught and the educational relationships in classrooms.